I didn’t vote.  Not for President, anyway.

Oh, I went to the voting booth.  I signed, was given my stub, and was walked over to a voting machine.  I cast votes for statewide races and a state referendum on water and sewer improvements.

I stood there, and I thought about all of these people, who influenced my life so greatly.  But I didn’t vote for who would be the 44th President of the United States.

When my ballot was complete, except for the top line, I finally decided who I was going to vote for – and then decided to let him vote for me.  I reached down, picked him up, and told him to find Obama’s name on the screen and touch it.

And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Oh, the vote will be recorded as mine.  But I didn’t cast it.

Then again, the person who actually pressed the Obama box and the red “vote” button was the person I was really voting for all along.

I also took my 5 year old to the voting booth when I voted and allowed her to push the button for Barack Obama.  So I suppose I didn’t vote for him technically either.

She has been very into this election like I never expected.  Now, she can’t quite get her tongue around his name so she just calls him “Rock the ‘Bama”.  Last night she was so excited she made us promise to wake her up and let her know who won if they announced before my wife and I went to bed.

Knowing that she will never know a world where all of our leaders have always been rich white men is overwhelming.  I am so proud of this country today.  From the back of the bus to the White House in 50 years…you couldn’t ask for a better example of what a wonderfully perfectable system America is.

Perfectable, but not perfect.  On the same night we celebrate the culmination of our parents civil rights movement our own took 2 major steps backward.  The passing of Proposition 8 in California banning gay marriage and Initiative 1 in my own state of Arkansas single cohabitating adults (read:  homosexuals) from adopting or becoming foster parents remind us that the progressive movement is never over.  We must remain ever vigilant.

To those who would despair that these two discrminatory measures would pass, I am with you.   But we take solace in the future.  Both were rejected by large margins by those under the age of 30.  63%-37% in California and 54%-46% in Arkansas.  Among those under 25 the number were even better.

These are large set backs to be sure.  But I have faith that history will see them as minor bumps in the road to an even more perfect union.  We are coming into power and will rebuild this country to reflect our values.  Let no one doubt that.  It will take time but we will see a gay presidential candidate in my lifetime.

Know hope.

I am now the sixth result if you do a google search for “huge asshole.” See for yourself.

ON THE ECONOMY : A solemn and sad situation

The first danger is the unbeliever himself. He is left with no god but himself, no wisdom but his own (except the wisdom of men ) and no hope of a life beyond this one. Worst of all, he is in danger of facing an eternity devoid of the God he denied. In short, he wanted it that way, and that is the way he got it. A solemn and sad situation.

The second danger is that the atheist may be able to persuade others (I knew of one situation like this where an older man concentrated on young people ) that his unbelief is really true. This might consign those he persuaded to the same fate that is in store for him.

The third danger lies in what kind of person the atheist may become when he becomes his own god. If he does not recognize God, he may not recognize any of the restraints that a belief in God generates. Thus, without restraint, he may become a pedophile, a murderer, a thief, or any other kind of a deviant you can think of. Or he might just become one who lives inward, with no concern for the people or things around him. There are tragic examples of such people.

My Response:

On Saturday September 22nd The NWA Times published an opinion piece by John Terry entitled “ON THE ECONOMY : A solemn and sad situation” in which he suggests that an atheist is likely to become “a pedophile, a murderer, a thief, or any other kind of a deviant you can think of.” It is absurd that such a statement should even have to be addressed but given that it was published in the most highly circulated paper in the region, it demands it. Mr. Terry attempts to wrap his brain the idea of a passionate atheist and then proceeds to give one of the most excellent examples I have ever seen of why so many of us are becoming more vocal.

Atheists are the most reviled group of citizens in this country. A recent study from the University of Minnesota (one of those darned secular universities) found that “Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Knowing how many Americans feel about Muslims and homosexuals, it is pretty scary to see us ranked below them. It is the casual bigotry of people like Mr. Terry who don’t even have the decency to be ashamed that gets to us. He is the reason we are becoming so passionate.

The fact is, as a group, the percentage of the incarcerated who are atheists is far lower than the percentage of atheists as a whole. America is the most Christian nation in the world and has never been more so. Yet, our economy is crashing around us, poverty and teen pregnancy are on the rise, and we have the largest percentage of citizens imprisoned of any country in the world. And regarding the outrageous claim I quoted to begin this response, I would hope that, as a minister himself, Mr. Terry would remember Matthew 7:3: “”Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

In a society that prides itself on the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech (to say nothing of the freedom of religion so many assume applies only to their own), it is important to remember the responsibility we citizens share in not abusing those rights. Mr. Terry has overstepped the bounds of that responsibility as is also his right. But it saddens and frightens me that an esteemed publication such as the Northwest Arkansas Times would give him a platform from which to spread his hatred.

Dwayne Allen / Bentonville

Andy Mckee – Drifting

The Shins – Pink Bullets

[Jesus] did everything in his power to make sure that you could go to heaven, so much so that he took your sin on his own body, suffered your pains for you and he’s saying, “Please accept me, believe me.”

If you reject that, you belong in hell. The outcome is your prerogative. But the way I see it, God himself sent his only son to die for David Paszkiewicz on that cross … And if you reject that, then it really is to hell with you.

He also specifically singled out a Muslim student and told her she would be going to Hell. I’m thinking the LeClairs are about to win a lot of money in a lawsuit. I hate to see something like that done to a school, but sometimes an example needs to be made. This foolishness cannot be tolerated in our public schools.

Instead of teaching them History, he was teaching them, “that a being must have created the universe, that the Christian Bible is the word of God, and that dinosaurs were aboard Noah’s ark. If you do not accept Jesus, he flatly proclaimed to his class, “you belong in hell.[...]he also dismissed evolution and the Big Bang as non-scientific, arguing by contrast that the Bible is supported by what he calls confirmed biblical prophecies.” He also singled out a Muslim student and “lamented what he saw as her inevitable fate should she not convert.”

The best part is how they caught him though. One student, Matthew LaClair, complained about the event to the school principal and requested a meeting with Mr. Paszkiewicz and the principal. But in the meeting Mr. Paszkiewicz denied it and said that the student had taken something he had said out of context. And now, for the big pwning: “At the end of the meeting, LaClair revealed that he had recorded the remarks, and presented the principal with two compact discs. The teacher then declined to comment further without his union representative. However, he fired one last shot at the student, saying, ‘You got the big fish … you got the big Christian guy who is a teacher…!’” Self-important deceitful ass. UPDATE: There has been a response from some of the other students who attend the school at the original blog that posted this, The Lippard Blog.

My High School (Flippin High School – Go Bobcats!) probably had one of the highest minister to non-minister faculty ratios of any public school anywhere. Our Civics/History, Math, Biology, and Band teachers were all ministers of some sort. That’s in addition to our men’s Basketball coach (who also taught Health) and High School Principal. And that’s out of about a dozen to fifteen teachers total. Mostly, they were Church of Christ or Southern Baptist, so they weren’t exactly liberal in their beliefs either. But I will say one thing for my school, everybody there believed in the separation of Church and State. If they didn’t believe in it, at least they followed it.

We had only one incident of anything like this that I can remember. It was actually not even a regular teacher or minister that did it either. It was some wack-job they brought in as a substitute for our Physics teacher. He was real brilliant too. Instead of just trying to convert us to his religious beliefs by talking to us, he actually handed out those little Jack Chick tracts. One of the students in class that was arguing with him was a Mormon and he gave her a Jack Chick all about how Mormons are going to burn in Hell for worshiping a false god. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t one to be bullied around and went straight to the principal’s office after class with his tract. I don’t know exactly what happened from there, but he wasn’t teaching class next period and we never saw him again.

Ed Brayton speculated that this goes on, unreported, all the time. I don’t know if that is true or not, but I do know that at least at my school, they have it right. This was at a small school in deep backwoods Arkansas. If they can get it right, hopefully a lot of schools are.

(By the way, if you actually go to my high school’s web page and look at some of the pictures, they aren’t crazy militia people (well, most aren’t). For some reason they always take group pictures during Spirit Week. Those appear to have been taken on Camo Day.)

UAPD Arrested Me Unjustly

I was arrested by UAPD on November 7th at 12:30 p.m., and I believe they arrested me unjustly. UAPD arrested me during a debate with the fundamentalist Christian Moses, but they considered my method of argument “disorderly conduct”. In terms of true justice, either UAPD violated my Constitutional right to free speech, or UAPD should have arrested Moses for disorderly conduct as well. Before completing this argument, allow me to provide historical context for my relationship with Moses.

I have witnessed Moses preaching on campus for years and have never been angry with him, but with the agenda he pushes. Everyone knows his sermons about everyone burning in eternal hellfire. He says Greeks, cheerleaders, shorthaired women, longhaired men, liberal professors, liberal students, homosexuals, and anyone that disagrees with his literalist interpretation of the King James Bible will burn in hell.

I am particularly angry with his hateful diatribes toward gay people because this is a growing reality in America, especially among fundamentalist Christians. They’re amending Constitutions everywhere in fear of gays destroying marriage, which is ridiculous because if marriage is religious, then we should simply separate it from state. The level of hateful discrimination toward gay people is identical to past hatred toward blacks. It seems fundamentalists need an enemy, which used to be heretics, witches, indians, and blacks. Now the enemy is gays, Muslims, liberals and Mexican immigrants. Hierarchical churches fear the losing of their grip on power over people, so they transmutate that fear into hate for their flock to practice.

Now, let’s talk about the arrest. Moses was preaching his usual hate-filled sermons, which is antithetical to Jesus’s message of Love for all God’s children. I was going to lunch and heard his hate speech, but this time he was also telling people to vote Republican. He was saying that liberals and Democrats were evil and going to burn in hellfire. I couldn’t take anymore! I tried debating him civilly to prove his misunderstanding of Jesus’s message of Love, and that pro-life religious and political leaders are the world’s biggest hypocrites when the subject of life is philosophically broken down. He wouldn’t listen to me, and wouldn’t let anyone else listen to me. He constantly interrupted me and never let me finish a point, highly characteristic of fundamentalists.

I thought this is my campus, and I’m sick of the hate and hypocrisy, and support of the highly immoral Republican Party. I then retrieved my megaphone and gave a speech I had written about pro-life hypocrisy, and violations of morality and law by our Republican controlled government.

Moses then called the UAPD on me. When Officer Evans came, I immediately said I’m leaving and I‘m sorry. Evans ignored me and said, “give me your driver’s license”, so I started getting it. He then said, “put your hands behind your back” and clamped the handcuffs so tight that it cut off circulation and made my hands numb. I became very angry and called Moses many impolite, but not immoral swear words. Evans then led me to his car, and in doing so I fell and busted my head on the concrete because I couldn’t catch myself. I was then even angrier, so I kicked a trashcan.

I was then taken to Washington County Department of Corrections. Then I was placed in an ice-cold concrete cell without shoes, jacket or a blanket for 13 hours before they lackadaisically booked me. In the cell were hard criminals and a violent meth addict with bleeding sores all over his body. I finally bonded out at 3:00 a.m.

At the jail, I discovered I was arrested for disorderly conduct. The booking officer told me Officer Evans justified my arrest because I “threatened Moses”, which wasn’t true. Evans also said “he told me to leave and I didn’t”, which wasn’t true. In fact, I immediately offered to leave and apologized!

Here’s my argument. UAPD either violated my Constitutional right to free speech, or assuming Evan’s was right, I was disorderly. However, if I was disorderly for making a constructively angry argument, Moses should also have been arrested for disorderly conduct. He preaches immoral hate and hellfire condemnation, and he purposefully incites people to anger and the type of action I exhibited. Furthermore, I’ve heard he travels to Universities and tries to get people to assault him, so his lawyer wife can sue Universities for vast sums of money. My point is that either my civil rights were violated or Moses should have been arrested as well. Either way UAPD acted unjustly toward me, and my reputation is potentially tarnished forever!

Here is the video of his arrest for disorderly conduct.

If you haven’t been to the UofA and heard “Moses” speak, it’s hard to really understand just how inflammatory the guy is. If you’ve ever seen the Westboro Baptist people protesting, he’s alot like that. You can kind of hear some of it on the video but it is hard to make out. It’s really messed up that the UofA “gives” free speech to people like Moses and then arrest someone for trying to refute his hate. I’ve heard that Abel has retained an ACLU lawyer so hopefully he can get past this.

UPDATE Here is a little more on Moses and the UofA. And here’s a little list of the people Moses says are going to Hell:

“Drinker, smoker, glutton, breather, hippie, musician, fornicator, sorority member, fraternity member, gay, lesbian, Catholic, Episcopal, Jew, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Muslim, Confucian, atheist, agnostic, pro-choice, anti-gay marriage amendment, Democratic, Republican, blond, brunette, redhead, hunter, fisher, Harry Potter fan, Lord of the Rings fan, Star Trek fan, Star Wars fan, Wizard of Oz fan, pop music fan, movie fan, Irish, sexually active, couch potato, casual dater, partier, speaker of any language other than English, newspaper or magazine subscriber, tax payer, potty mouth, day sleeper, postal carrier, truck driver, drive-thru window attendant, waitress, mall employee, zoo keeper, basket weaver, songwriter, liquor store clerk, student, unwed mother, single father, foreign car driver, consumer, soldier, judge, lawyer, doctor, professor, lover, hater, indifferent party, dissenter, or human being.”

As an aside, the Alliance Defense Fund describes Moses as “a Christian man [..] who has shared his faith with passersby on public grounds.” For anyone familiar with the ADF, it’s pretty fitting that they would choose to ally themselves with him. If you’re not familiar, check out Dispatches from the Culture Wars and do a search for “ADF.” They are a homophobic theocrat organization created to oppose the ACLU. There was a good article on them in the Washington Post earlier this year.

“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

I am actually from Dallas, so good job random quiz on the Internet.

(via Pharyngula)